


Figuring It Out

by lonelywalker



Category: Breakfast with Scot (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:30:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5464934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Figure skating, proposals, raising a teenage boy... The list of things Eric doesn't know anything about just keeps getting longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Figuring It Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partypaprika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/gifts).



Eric looked down at the notepad in front of him on the coffee table. He looked up at the freeze-framed TV screen. He snuck a glance to the right, where Scot was still doing what could only be described as aerial twirling and had already led to two sharp encounters with the floor. He put down his pen.

“That just looks exactly the same as the last one. And the one before that.”

Scot’s eyebrows raised, his widely innocent blue eyes radiating confusion and disappointment. “Oh _Eric_. No, you take off in an entirely different direction!”

Eric recognized that look. It was the look of his tenth grade math teacher. The teacher who had sighed every time she handed back his tests and said, “well at least you have sports to fall back on.” He’d just never thought sports could require so much studying. Or that he could actually _fail_ , not with Nula and her flashcards full of Russian player names and phonetic pronunciations.

“Scot… I really, really appreciate you trying to help, but it’s not… Let’s face it, I’m never going to tell an Axel from, uh…” Eric twirled his finger. “…the other spinny one.”

He’d been talking about the Winter Olympics for a _year_ , on and offscreen, interviewing hockey players and managers, reviewing strategies and form, revving up an entire nation with anticipation for Canadian domination on the ice. And then Greg had cornered him in the break room one week ago with “Terry’s got mono. We might need you to cover figure skating.”

Which had sounded like a joke at the time, because knowing how to skate for hockey was nothing like knowing how to skate with all those fancy twirls and jumps and _sequins_. (“Does all the sparkling help somehow?” he’d asked Scot. “Should the Leafs maybe try it?”) But it had seemed less and less like a joke with every new schedule Nula tacked to his door. The truth was that CSTN had plenty of anchors and commentators who could cover hockey. Heck, there was pretty much a whole _country_ out there that could cover hockey. But figure skating…? Apparently not so much. Not on this network, anyway.

On the couch next to him, Ryan was still rhythmically thumping his hockey stick to the ground between his feet, the very picture of boredom. It was pretty admirable he’d sat there for a whole half hour. “This is bullshit,” he said, not for the first time. “They can’t make the gay guy cover stupid ice dancing.”

“Actually, Ryan, ice dancing is a completely different-”

“Hey, I’m not _the_ gay guy, okay?” Eric interrupted. Sure, when the papers had made a big deal about it four years ago when he kind of had been _the_ gay guy, as the first openly gay athlete from one of North America’s big four sports leagues. But there had been a few others since then – Amaechi, Burke, that rugby guy in England – and while that didn’t stop magazines putting his picture everywhere (Scot liked to leave the shirtless pics lying around), he’d tried to avoid media attention as much as he could. Which was tough, seeing as he _was_ the media. 

Ryan poked at his calf with the stick. “Yeah? Who else is gay at your network?”

Eric was so, so bad at lying on the spot. “…Phil in accounting? Oh, and Sonya. Sonya from tennis.”

He could sense the judgmental looks from both of them. “Okay, so I’m the gay guy. It doesn’t come with some starter pack on girly sports!”

“Figure skating is _not_ girly,” Scot said. “It takes tons of strength, speed, precision, artistry… I bet you couldn’t do it in a million years, Mr. I-Bench-Press-The-World.”

So that was one bet Eric was _not_ going to take. “Yeah, but I guess interviewing these skaters isn’t any different than hockey players, right?” He adopted his charming-interviewer voice. “Fantastic performance out there! How confident are you going into the finals? Looks like Petrovsky’s on top of his game tonight!”

“Oh sure,” Scot said. It was the same tone he used when tutoring Ryan for history finals. “That’ll be fine.”

***

“Cheer up,” Sam said, when he found Eric curled up in the fetal position, pillow clutched to his chest like he was having period pains. Which, to be honest, Eric was pretty sure was possible right now. “They’re not going to make you do it. It would be stereotypical in the extreme.”

Eric rolled over onto his back. “That’s just it. I don’t want them to treat me any differently because I’m, you know, _Erica_. And Scot seems to think figure skating’s some hyper-macho extreme sport anyway.”

“He could have a point.” Sam unthreaded his tie. He’d been working late a lot recently. “Imagine how brave you’d have to be to put on sparkly spandex.”

Eric considered it. “Can I still take my stick for self defense? Maybe the pads too?”

“Greg’s just yanking your chain. He’s probably said exactly the same thing to every other guy. Or… _Or_ he has total confidence that you can cope with anything.”

“Sure. I have a long history of coping spectacularly well with everything.” Like never dating a guy till he was thirty. Like spending five years sunk into pain and depression after his career-ending injury. Like practically ruining Scot’s life after his mom had died. The past four years had been pretty good, all considered, but that’s because they had been stable ones. Same job. Same house. Same Sam. Same Scot humming Christmas carols up in the attic. Even same Ryan living down the street.

Sam toed off his shoes and finished unbuttoning his shirt. “You underestimate how incredibly winning you are onscreen. Everyone’s mom loves you. Even if you make mistakes it’ll be adorable. Just get the actual expert to explain things. How many people watching actually know what a… a flying triple Lutz is?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a Mortal Kombat move.”

He felt better, though, when Sam slid onto the bed next to him and tugged him away from the pillow. That was exactly what Sam knew how to do. He spent all day every day in mediations, convincing people they’d made the right decision, that everything was going to work out for the best. Sam was good at looking after people. So good that it was really amazing he hadn’t looked into having kids until Scot had come along. 

Well, actually, not that amazing. For those five years Eric had been in rehab, trying to get his shattered shoulder, his mind, and his life back together, he’d been probably a worse houseguest than Scot. At least Scot was neat and tidy, and made breakfast, and washed up while cheerfully singing 70s folk hits. Eric had trampled mud into the hallway, dropped sweaty shirts all the way from the bathroom to bedroom, and been too fatigued to think about chores or about the fact _Sam_ might need to be looked after once in a while too. Sam was good at taking care of a house, shopping, making appointments, keeping Eric on track. And Eric was good at… needing to be taken care of, mostly.

He pressed his cheek to Sam’s chest, curling against him. “Did you see Scot?”

“He texted me. He’s at Ryan’s, trying to write a paper.”

“Uh huh.”

Sam cupped the back of his head, stroking his hair and holding him closer. “You think… I mean… they’re fifteen.”

“Yeah, and Ryan’s mom will murder them if she hears anything more than a Casio.” He’d kind of given Scot _The Talk_ a few months ago, because there was no way that Sam was going to, and mainly Eric just wanted to make sure no deflowering was going to happen in their own bed. Scot had held the Durex box at arm’s length, as if it might contaminate him, and asked, “Can I get back to studying now?”

Eric couldn’t exactly claim some kind of moral high ground when it came to sexual experience. He’d spent ten years devoted 24/7 to hockey, as though scoring enough goals, winning enough fights, and keeping his six-pack in shape would ward off both sexual desires and any questions about his private life. That hadn’t worked one bit. He’d been a feared brawler as macho as anyone else on the team, and he’d still been “Erica” in the locker room. Maybe if he’d spent a bit less time doing bicep curls he could’ve spent more time in the sack.

He ran a hand down Sam’s chest. Sam’s “I play basketball on Saturdays and go to spinning classes once in a while” chest. His stomach. His belt buckle.

It had been _crazy_ long until they’d had time to themselves after Scot moved in. Because if they could hear Scot singing, he could definitely hear them doing whatever. And back then there hadn’t even been a lock on the door after Sam had remodeled the place, because why would they need a lock? The lock that’s there now had been Sam’s Christmas present to him. And, Christmas night, they’d figured Scot was too knocked out by over-excitement and fruit punch to hear anything. Well. _Almost_ anything.

Sam turned and kissed him, letting Eric do the awkward fumbling to get his belt undone, which was _really_ awkward with Sam’s hands on his cheeks, with Sam’s tongue in his mouth, and Eric couldn’t see or barely breathe, but hey there it was. A loose belt, an open fly, and Sam’s boxer-briefs bulging with what was basically Eric’s favorite thing outside a hockey rink.

***

“Eric?”

Scot had this habit of rapping on the door _after_ he’d already opened it, which had led to Eric being in a constant state of hyper-vigilance at home. He’d thought he was safe at the office. But with Nula as Scot’s eternal co-conspirator, he was obviously still screwed.

He clicked everything he could onscreen so the guy with scarily chiseled abs would disappear. “Hey… shouldn’t you be in school? Was I supposed to pick you up from school?” He glanced at his watch. No, it was almost five, and Scot caught the bus with Ryan these days anyway.

“We have to talk.” Scot sat down in the chair opposite the desk, fingers laced together like when Sam was being his most stereotypical lawyer.

Eric narrowed his eyes. “You’re gay. Ryan’s gay. You got Ryan pregnant. He got you pregnant. You’ve figured out a way to download all the world’s figure skating knowledge directly into my brain like Keanu in _The Matrix_.”

Scot had grown a lot in four years, but his “I can’t believe you remember to keep breathing” expression hadn’t changed a bit. “Yes, maybe, no, no, and probably not. But that’s not why I’m here.”

“…can I ask _why_ …”

“Sam wants you to propose.”

Eric really felt that Scot should appreciate just how many things he didn’t say right then. Like, “Sam, my Sam?” and “Propose what?” and “Me?” But possibly just sitting there staring blankly didn’t help much. So what he did say was, “Huh?”

“Sam wants to get married,” Scot said, “and he wants you to ask him.”

“Did he tell you that?” Sam and Scot got along really well, but weirdly it was always Eric who’d had the heart-to-hearts with him. 

“His browser history did. When my laptop died last week.”

Eric made a mental note to make doubly sure he erased _everything_ from that computer. “Yeah?”

“Uh huh. He’s been Googling interfaith marriage ceremonies, suits, vows, venues…”

“Well I Google… all kinds of stuff. Doesn’t mean anything.”

Scot raised his eyebrows. “For a _year_?”

“Okay, maybe that means something. But why wouldn’t he mention it? He’s never mentioned it. And we’re already living together. We’re already, uh, living together. Like I said. And Sammy doesn’t like big celebrations.”

Scot’s eyebrows, if possible, raised higher. _Did_ Sam like big celebrations? He hated the cocktail parties his firm threw every holiday season, but Eric was pretty sure those didn’t count.

“Anyway, he could ask me, right? It’s not like I’m the man.” Eric stopped. Reconsidered. “ _Am_ I the man?”

It was the kind of thing everything he read told him was a misconception about gay relationships. Like asking two spoons which one was the fork. (Or something like that.) But Eric was a former sports star. Eric could chop down trees and mow lawns and throw people over his shoulder. Those were kind of… man things, right? At least so far as Eric’s own father was the example. But no, Eric’s dad had never been a good example of anything.

“I thought he was happy with the way things are,” Eric said. “Isn’t he?”

“Maybe,” Scot said, “you should think about why he hasn’t asked you.” And with that, he slipped out of the office again like a taller, paler, Canadian Yoda.

Eric drummed his fingers on his desk.

It took about two minutes for him to hunt down Nula and ask her why people got married. He and Sam had been at her wedding to George Jr. eighteen months ago, and it had been nice. A small family-and-close-friends thing after George’s first marriage had swiftly hit a wall. But Nula and George’s life seemed to be pretty much the same as Eric and Sam’s life. Except with a couple of gold bands and fewer power bars.

“It’s tradition,” Nula said, eying him like she already saw right through him. She usually did. “And we want to have kids soon. And… I don’t know, tax reasons?”

Eric digested this. Tradition seemed to go out the window if you were gay (didn’t it?) and they already had Scot, and surely if Sam wanted to get married for tax reasons he would’ve brought it up sooner. “And George proposed, right?”

“Well, we’d talked about it first. But yeah. Honestly, I’m not the kind of girl who waits around, but I thought it was important for him to make the decision. You know. Because it didn’t work out for him the first time around.”

“Oh,” Eric said.

Nula shrugged. “You don’t want to make someone feel like they have to say yes, you know?”

“Right,” Eric said.

“Since you’re here… I pulled these from the archives. Old figure skating coverage.”

Eric looked blankly at the stack of dusty VHS tapes. “Can’t I just go on YouTube?”

“Now where’s the fun in that?”

***

Sam was working late again, and Scot was watching Ryan’s junior league game. Eric had many, many tapes and many, many beers. Probably not enough of either to answer the major questions on his mind. Scot had left _Figure Skating for Dummies_ on the coffee table, with passages highlighted in yellow and pink marker. Eric wondered if _Reading Your Partner’s Mind for Dummies_ might be available on Amazon.

Weddings were something that only got mentioned in the house when they received invitations to other people’s. Sam hadn’t been dropping hints. Hadn’t started talking about flower arrangements or breaking glasses or whatever happened at Jewish weddings (Eric had been to two, and was still mystified). Sam knew that Eric didn’t do subtlety. Eric liked to be told what to do. Preferably in a raised tone of voice, with lots of pointing at diagrams on a whiteboard. That was just the way his brain had been wired since adolescence. Take your shoes off. Throw dirty clothes in the laundry basket. Don’t drink the pear soda. And don’t leave any stray hairs in the soap, thank you very much.

But maybe that was kind of the point. If Sam had said “we’re getting married,” Eric would probably have said “okay.” Four years ago he would’ve freaked out. But now the world knew he was gay, knew he was with Sam. Eric had survived being an insta-Dad. He could probably survive a wedding. 

Sam, though, didn’t want him to say “okay.” Sam wanted him to mean it. To want it. To not feel like it was something he _had_ to do to make Sam happy. Sam hadn’t told him straight-up that they had to hang on to Scot and not ever let Billy take him, and Eric had worked that one out all by himself. 

He gave up on the tapes and beer (was he going to hook up Mildred’s ancient VCR? no he was not), and invited himself to his sister’s house. It was rare that he did, but Joan had that older-sister sixth-sense going, so she didn’t look at all surprised when she answered the door. “Why does Sam want to get married?” he asked on her doorstep. “And what’s a toe loop?”

It was pretty much a miracle that their father had ever raised someone as mature and capable as Joan, but probably she’d been forced into it by the complete vacuum of maturity around her. Their dad could do discipline. He could do sports and TV and drinking. Joan could keep them all fed, and Eric on an even keel the nights he’d show up drunk and sobbing, hating himself for wanting to be loved. These days she had several bookcases of pop-psych literature and a kitchen full of Tupperware containers she seemed to keep just in case Eric swung by.

“Have you thought of asking Sam these things?” Joan said while he devoured minestrone soup by the heaped spoonful. 

“I don’t think he knows anything about toe loops.”

“Ask him if he really does want to get married, and why.”

Eric shook his head, swallowing. “I can’t just _ask_ him. He’ll feel like he’s being put on the spot and he’ll say whatever makes me happy. And what if he says yes? Then what do I say? I have to say yes too!”

“Do you want to say yes?”

“I… I want to make him happy.” He glanced around the room, just in case his nephew Hank had suddenly appeared. Some things didn’t need an audience. “What have I done for him in all this time? It’s been almost ten years since he picked me up from the ice and put me back together. I don’t even know if I’d be here if it wasn’t for him.”

“Eric. You make him happy, baby brother. Believe me. You really think he’d put up with your crap if he didn’t? Not everyone gets to live with the sweetest, cutest NHL enforcer in history.”

Eric cocked his head to the side before shoveling in another piping-hot mouthful of soup. “I’m totally sweet,” he said. “I even put the cap back on the toothpaste.”

He had a key to the rink after closing, where he still coached the kids’ team even now that Ryan had moved up to the junior league and Scot had found half a dozen other hobbies he liked better. The dark and the cold have always calmed him down. It’s where he lost himself during all the bad times as a teen and in his twenties. Other guys would be with girls. He’d run, lift weights, take shots, and hope he could fall asleep standing up. 

His first thought out there was that he needed to play more pick-up games with adults. Maybe get in a league himself, just for fun. Teaching the kids was okay, but they were kids, and mostly not very talented or serious. He needed a challenge. Just maybe not a challenge that might break more bones.

He’d forgotten to bring a stick or puck. Probably he could get both from the locker rooms. But he was already out there in his t-shirt and sweats, alone in the cool air. _Should’ve brought some sequins_ drifted into his mind.

Huh.

He’d watched Scot's DVDs. He was an athlete, a skater. Sure, he wasn’t going to win any competitions, but… He tried one of those jumps and fell hard onto his ass. Naturally. But hey, he’d tried some of that stuff as a kid, as any kid would. He could do some simple things then, right? Back before other guys started laughing at anything resembling a pirouette. Man, if he’d had half as thick a skin as Scot, his childhood could’ve been a lot different. 

Still, it was kind of freeing to skate, to just skate without a stick, without a game. And to land some tiny jumps, actually paying attention to what he was doing, which foot he was using. Even Scot would’ve found it unimpressive and probably hilarious, but hey, it was educational. He was learning. (He was also relearning how unforgiving the ice was when you fell on it in nothing more than sweats and a t-shirt.)

By this point, if Greg had just been joking? There would be actual murder on the ninth floor.

***

“Did you get mugged?” Sam asked from behind his laptop when Eric took off his jacket in the bedroom. The redness and black-and-blue marks got worse under his t-shirt and sweats. And probably most of the bruises hadn’t even fully blossomed yet. 

“I was doing some research.”

“Into how bad a beating you can take?” Sam closed his laptop and put it to one side as Eric crawled onto the bed and collapsed. “Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, take an ice bath or something?”

“I’m okay.” It was pretty nice to sink into pillows and those zillion-count sheets though. And maybe never get up again. “I’ve had worse.” Which was true. Except he’d been ten years younger at the time and had physios on hand. Well, at least he hadn’t landed on his face.

“Uh huh.” Sam stretched out a hand to tousle Eric’s hair, which really meant more stroking his head. He’d done it when Eric was still in the hospital and Sam was just Eric’s lawyer. Eric was eternally thankful he’d never stopped doing it, all these years. 

“We should get married,” Eric said into a pillow.

Sam looked at him. “Really?”

“If you want to. Do you want to? You want to, right?” 

There was a moment of silence. “Eric… why are you asking me this suddenly?”

Probably this was not the super-romantic, soaring-music, rose-petals type of proposal he was supposed to be doing. But lying was never his strong point. “Well, Scot said you were waiting for me to ask you, and I thought about why you might want to get married, and…”

Sam let out a breath that seemed like half a sigh of relief and half a puff of laughter. “And… did you think about why _Scot_ might want us to get married?”

 _Why Scot might want them to get married..._ Eric imagined a wedding. He imagined flowers, fashion, dancing, music, romance… He imagined Scot Latour Googling those exact websites and then probably bookmarking them for Sam to find.

Eric’s head popped up. “I’m going to kill him. I am literally going to go right up those stairs and kill him. Just as soon as I can actually move. So maybe in March.” Was the kid upstairs now? Maybe if Eric really concentrated he could explode his skull from here. But he settled back down against Sam instead, because everything was far better when Sam was holding him.

“So…” Sam cleared his throat, as if to dismiss that entire subject. “What were you researching, exactly?”

“Uh, figure skating. I can now put together a really great segment about why a guy in his forties can’t teach himself how to do flying dragon kicks after a few beers.”

Sam chuckled. “You’d better pray Team Canada goes all the way. Or the mono spreads.”

“Yeah, great. I’ll be covering curling as well.”

In the beginning it had taken him a long time to talk to Sam - really talk to him - and then it had taken him a long time to learn how to _not_ talk, to not feel like he had to fill in the silences with anxious jabber. The house was never quiet – the hum from the laptop, the creaking of wood, the music Scot’s listening to upstairs – but sometimes his mind could be. Sometimes he could even think about things changing and not panic at all. Figure skating. Sure, why the heck not? Marriage? Bring it on!

“You know,” Sam said, “people get married for a lot worse reasons than because their son wants to plan it all.”

“I think maybe they get married for a lot better reasons too.” His heart should have been thumping at the very idea. And yet… Maybe it, like the rest of him, had been numbed by all those close encounters with the ice.

Sam’s fingers were in his hair again. “Well, yes. Because we love each other. Because it would make my parents very happy. Because it’ll make some legal issues easier. _And_ because our son wants to plan it all.”

A slow smile spread across Eric’s face. “You are a fantastic mediator,” he said, snuggling into Sam’s side. All the pain radiating from his joints didn’t seem so bad anymore.

“And you are… the best guy I know if I ever need anyone beaten with a stick.”

And that, Eric figured, was the perfect way to decide to spend the rest of your life with someone, with or without the little gold bands.


End file.
